An account of the late murder and suicide in Leicester : with the reasons why one of the medical men at the coroner's inquest gave his opinion that she was insane ... / by a surgeon.

  • Anderson, James, -1863.
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the late murder and suicide in Leicester : with the reasons why one of the medical men at the coroner's inquest gave his opinion that she was insane ... / by a surgeon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    self at the same time of life in different members of the same families. M, Baillarger states, “ that the devel- opement of hereditary insanity may be feared in chil¬ dren, if the father or mother was insane at the period of conception, previously or since.” Among the phy¬ sical causes of insanity enumerated is bodily injuries or wounds. She had a sore finger. The fingers are very sensitive, and when injured immediately informs the mind; a wound or prick in the fingers frequently proves fatal. Every excess of passion, love, joy, grief, fear, overweening pride, anxiety, &c. &c. may become a moral cause of insanity. The disposition to diseases of progenitors becomes perfectly apparent in those periods of life, which from the change of the structure, favour the operation of occasional causes, Mania does not take place before the strong state of manhood. (2.)—Insanity seldom occurs before 20, its attacks are numerous between 20 and 40. (3.)—Neither savages nor inferior animals wilfully kill themselves, which is a proof that the exalted state of nervous sensibility of the human species, rendered morbid bv the habits of civilized life, induces the insane states of mind, which determine them to destroy them¬ selves in violation of the feelings of nature. (4.)—Me¬ lancholy patients often flee from men, and haunt solitary places and are given to nocturnal rambles. Not 200 yards where the inquest was held in 1841, I had a patient that informed me that he had walked in the evening, (singular coincidence) over the same ground as Groce, to find a convenient place to commit suicide, I inquired what was the motive for contemplating such a horrible deed ? Answered, Idolatry. Idolatry, that he loved and gave more homage to the creature than to the Creator, I infoimed the late vicar, the Rev. A. Irvine of the circumstance ; he accompanied me to the man’s house,and endeavoured to show him the delusion. [2] Dr. T. Jameson on the changes of the human body, at dif¬ ferent ages and diseases at each period. ... Cage 152. [3] . „ 240. J4] . „ 241.